Blood
by Cardboard Tube Knight
Summary: Sherlock tells Molly he needs her. How he's managed to piece her secret together, she doesn't know. She will help him though. They'll bare the weight of these secrets together. Not a pairing fic though there's light suggestion


**Blood  
>Rating: T<br>Pairing: **none**  
>Word Count: <strong>1,955**  
>Prompt: <strong>none**  
>DisclaimerWarnings: **_The characters that lie within are based on the Sherlock characters made by the good people over at the BBC. I do not own them. Spoilers for season two, huge ones at that. Be warned. _

* * *

><p>The first few hours after Sherlock awakens will be critical.<p>

There's no telling how long he's known or how he found out. In the short hours between him appearing in the dark corner of her lab proclaiming that she was important and that he needed her and the time when he dove off the roof of a moderately tall London landmark, she's had to pull herself together and figure out all that she can about what she is and how this is supposed to go.

Molly didn't think to ask Sherlock how he'd figured it out until it was too late. The planning was done and he was gone into the night. One of her first thoughts is to ring her mother. She was old school—would know how this was done and what all the risks were. Though the more she considered it, the more she realized that this was the last thing she wanted to deal with. It wasn't going to help her when it came time to keep Sherlock's secret.

She stays up most of the night poring over an old tome. It was one of the last things she ever remembered getting from her Gran—well the woman she knew as Gran. The only new thing in between the worn leather covers was a beautifully written message on the inside of the front cover. _Never forget Molly, you're special. You're a Hoopengarner._

The old family name. It had been changed before the First World War. But right then she felt more of a connection to it than ever before. Molly must have stared at that page for several minutes, tracing her fingers over the indention where the pen had been pressed to the paper. The book smelt of old clothes and mothballs and stale attics kissed one too many times with the aroma of rain on their roofs.

When the time comes, when she finally wheels Sherlock in from outside she knows there is very little time. It is dangerous for her and him, even though the door was chained shut. She had reserved an old room at the far end of the building near where the renovations were taking place. Less chance of being found out there.

For the part of the night where she doesn't have her nose in a book she's gorging herself on blood. It's been years since she drank so much of it and she hates the way she feels after. She's alert and everything is rigid and alive. Cold is colder, warm warmer. Smells and touch are so vivid that simple sensations that are good become orgasmic. She avoids touching anyone or even being in their presence.

It's addictive and anyone that she happens to pass is hard to resist. Her mother always warned her that regular feeding makes it easier to avoid the effects. But she's never listened to mother. She let her father die when he could have easily opened a vein and healed himself. Molly knew how it worked. His cancer only persisted because he refused to go back to that life and her mother had just let him lay there and die.

So she didn't listen and she had never called her mother. But when Sherlock's body lying in front of her on the edge of life she can't help herself. She crawls atop him and sinks her fangs into the alabaster flesh of his shoulder, drinking him down until she can feel the thud of his heart through her whole body. Her pulse quickens too and her chest feels like it might explode.

Molly wrenches herself away and grabs a scalpel. Before she can rethink it she cuts deep into her wrist. It barely feels like a pinch. Seconds later she's holding her wrist to Sherlock's mouth. He suckles at her, seeming at first as if it's just a reaction. But as something takes hold of him he latches onto her arm. The strength is returning to his body.

She's only drank from someone once in uni and she's never turned anyone. She knew the mechanics of the process but she had no idea there was such pleasure involved. When Sherlock finally collapses onto the gurney, his lips stained with her blood, she breathes a sigh of relief. She needs to get him outside. In her current state she can easily lift him, but it might be suspicious if she tries.

In the time while she waits for his wounds to seal over she prepares the replacement body. Its quickly sorted. Since she knew what they were walking into she drew up all the paperwork last night (while drinking blood laced coffee).

* * *

><p>Sherlock stirs beneath the thick yellow duvet and then all at once he wakes up mesmerized. He blinks back the surprise and glances to where Molly reclines in the chair at his side. "I feel—"<p>

His words vibrate through her and it's then that she realizes how much the blood still has its hold on her. "—You need to feed. You're not fully healed yet." Molly remembered a time when she was a child and broke her leg. Her mother basically drowned her with pig's blood until the bone had repaired itself. And that had taken days. She could only imagine what kind of recovery time they were looking at here.

Sherlock drinks from her shoulder until she feels weak and some of the color has returned to his body. He doesn't have fangs yet, so the pinch of his teeth is minimal and she has to start the hole for him with a knife.

When he has had his fill Molly sighs and sits on the edge of the bed next to him. Her eyes are surrounded with dark, sagging skin, though she doesn't feel tired. There's something stern in her gaze as she regards Sherlock. "This is going to take days you know?" His eyes are bloodshot, but for the first time since the fall she thinks he's fully processing what she's saying. "You're not going to be like me. I'm a child of a half-vampire and a vampire…I don't need to feed. You can live without blood indefinitely, but if you don't get some once a month you'll go mad."

She knows he said it. Knows he meant it. But for the first time ever Molly feels like Sherlock truly needs her. He's all wrapped in bandages and he's not bleeding from the head anymore. When he speaks, he sounds like himself again, albeit a muted version.

"I can't exactly go around biting people. I'm supposed to be in hiding."

"I secured you a stash of blood from the hospital. Told them I tried to keep you alive off of it and just stole all that I could." It dawns on her right then that she still finds Sherlock attractive, yet her nervousness is suppressed. She's fearless and if the need took her she could tell him that she loved him right here. What's to stop her?

The tome she'd looked over talked about the effects of blood on half-breeds like her. It sounded like ecstasy when she read it, but really she likened it to a mixture of being really drunk without the disorientation and that one time she tried pot at uni.

"You're perfect." Her heart began to flutter as Sherlock closed his mouth as if to think. "My bespoke vampire—you do matter."

He was drunk off the taste of her. She probably smelled like food to him now. Going through the change was supposed to be euphoric at times, but hard at others.

"How long did you know?"

"Know what?"

"It sounds like you had me waiting in the wings. How long did you know what I was?"

"You neglect to breathe sometimes. You're too comfortable around death. And you work around it, yet smell like perfection. I figured that was some hormone you gave off to attract victims. It never seemed to frighten you that Moriarty might come for you—simply because you couldn't be killed through conventional means. Then there's the sun, it burns your eyes and you're never seen out in the daylight without sunglasses. The kicker for the whole thing was when I first met you I stole some of the coffee from you thermos. It tasted of blood…"

Molly just stared at him. "Guess I'm lucky you never came after me with some stakes and crosses." She let out a short, nervous giggle.

"Though I knew what you were, I never figured you to be a murderer. If you were there would have been a trail."

"Not if I knew how to hide bodies. I do work in a morgue."

"Do those things work?" he asked.

"Crosses and stakes? No. The stake will hurt, sure but it won't do much else. My mother has been staked five times in her life and she drained every one of the people who tried it."

"How does a vampire deliver a living child?"

Molly shrugged. It seemed weird to be having this conversation because she _never had this conversation_. Even within the family their gifts were rarely talked about and her gran and father made such a name for themselves that they had to shorten their name to Hooper to continue hiding.

"My father was the child of a half vampire and my mother was full—my gran turned her during the war, so when they had me I was half. Worked out sort of odd, I had the same gran for both parents."

"Wouldn't you be three quarters?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "It's not like race. It doesn't work that way. A half breed is made when any human blood enters the union. We don't fraction off like that. A lot of half breeds never know what they are and die of natural causes."

"Have you done this before?"

"What?"

"Any of it?"

Molly kills the lights and pushes him back down into bed. She's still much stronger than he is now and she can feel the strength pounding through her veins. It's dangerous. Molly could crave this—she could stay like this. Powerful and brave. High on blood.

The two of them are silent, but she can see him clearly in the darkness. "Once when I was in uni I drank a girl's blood. She was my roommate and I wanted to know what it felt like. I didn't kill her; still you probably think that sounds horrible."

Sherlock flashes a smile that is all too natural and she can tell that he's getting better. "No, just human."

There was a long road ahead of them, but Molly was glad to have someone to share her secret with. Maybe that was how all of this started, with her secret. Sherlock had to know he could trust her because she had kept this to herself all of this time. Now they were on equal footing, depending on one to hold this truth close and never let another soul know. Part of Molly nagged because she had just condemned Sherlock to a potential eternity of seeking out victims to drain if she couldn't secure enough blood. But Sherlock was brilliant and they had forever to work it out.


End file.
